Consumer Guide Album

Robert Wyatt: 1982-1984 [Rough Trade, 1984]
Wish there were English cribs for the two Spanish songs on this rather skimpy eight-cut compilation, because Wyatt's way with a lyric is one of the things that makes his hypnotic quaver so musical. But his arrangement of "Biko" for harmonium and percussion is so dumbfounding that I listen right through Victor Jara and Pedro Milanos anyway, and the melodies are growing on me. Side one surrounds Thelonious Monk and Eubie Blake with two pieces of communist propaganda, one by Elvis Costello and one by Wyatt himself. A-